Our research combines tools and outlooks of structural biology and synthetic organic chemistry to elucidate, sense, and regulate the activities of biomolecules. We use state-of-the-art techniques in electron microscopy, diffraction, nuclear magnetic resonance, molecular dynamics, mass spectrometry, single-molecule spectroscopy, and molecular design. Our department is highly interdisciplinary, at the interface of Biology, Chemistry, and Physics.
News
Best Lecture Prize at ICA2024
Congratulations to Maayan Eilon Ashkenazy for winning 'Best Lecture' at the ICA2024 Annual Meeting in Bar-Ilan
Congratulations co-first author Mihajlo Filep & other members of Nir London's lab for new article in Science describing COVID Moonshot campaign
Prizes at ICA meeting 2023
Congratulations to Lev Khmelnitsky for winning the best talk award and to Disha Gajanan Hiregange for best poster at the Israel Crystallographic Association meeting 2023
Winner of Best Poster - Ilanit meeting 2023
Congratulations to Lev Khmelnitsky (Fass lab) for winning best poster prize at the Ilanit meeting
Clifford Felder Prize
Congratulations to Michael Katz (Diskin lab) and Nava Reznik (Fass lab) for receiving the Clifford Felder Prize
Congratulations to Tal Ilani
for discovering the first physiological targets of the Golgi disulfide catalyst QSOX1.
New article published in Cell
Congratulations to Nava Reznik and the team on their paper in Cell: Intestinal Mucin Is a Chaperone of Multivalent Copper
New article published in Nature - Michael Katz
"Structure and receptor recognition by the Lassa virus spike complex"
New article in eLife journal - Rosie Irwin and Ofrah Faust
“Hsp40s play complementary roles in the prevention of tau amyloid formation”
New Article published in Nature Communications
Rosenblum, G., Elad, N., Rozenberg, H. et al. Allostery through DNA drives phenotype switching. Nat Commun 12, 2967 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-23148-2
New paper in JMB
New paper in JMB from Amnon Horovitz’s group (in collaboration with Michal Sharon)
Prof. Ada Yonath - Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2009
For studies of the structure and function of the ribosome
Beyond the Basics
"People called me a dreamer," says Prof. Ada Yonath of the Structural Biology Department, recalling her decision to undertake research on ribosomes – the cell's protein factories. Solving the ribosome's structure would give scientists unprecedented insight into how the genetic code is translated into proteins; by the late 1970s, however, top scientific teams around the world had already tried and failed to get these complex structures of protein and R.N.A to take on a crystalline form that could be studied. Dreamer or not, it was hard work that brought results: Yonath and colleagues made a staggering 25,000 attempts before they succeeded in creating the first ribosome crystals, in 1980.
And their work was just beginning. Over the next 20 years, Yonath and her colleagues would continue to improve their technique. In 2000, teams at Weizmann and the Max Planck Institute in Hamburg, Germany – both headed by Yonath – solved, for the first time, the complete spatial structure of both subunits of a bacterial ribosome. Science magazine counted this achievement among the ten most important scientific developments of that year. The next year, Yonath's teams revealed exactly how certain antibiotics are able to eliminate pathogenic bacteria by binding to their ribosomes, preventing them from producing crucial proteins.
Yonath's studies, which have stimulated intensive research worldwide, have now gone beyond the basic structure. She has revealed in detail how the genetic information is decoded, how the ribosome's inherent flexibility contributes to antibiotic selectivity and the secrets of cross-resistance to various antibiotic families. Her findings are crucial for developing advanced antibiotics.
Prof. Yonath is the Martin S. and Helen Kimmel Professor of Structural Biology. Prof. Ada Yonath's research is supported by the Helen and Milton A. Kimmelman Center for Biomolecular Structure and Assembly.
Events
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Date:31
Monday
March 2025
Hour: 11:00 - 12:15,Location: Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture HallEvent name: title tbdProf. Cynthia Wolberger, Department of Biophysics and Biophysical Chemistry, The Johns Hopkins University
Date:31Monday
March 2025
hour: 11:00 - 12:15,Location: Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture HallEvent name: title tbdProf. Cynthia Wolberger, Department of Biophysics and Biophysical Chemistry, The Johns Hopkins University
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Date:23
Monday
June 2025
Hour: 11:00 - 12:15,Location: Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture HallEvent name: title tbdProf. Danna Freedman, Chemistry, MIT
Date:23Monday
June 2025
hour: 11:00 - 12:15,Location: Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture HallEvent name: title tbdProf. Danna Freedman, Chemistry, MIT